GE’s investment in Sonnen shows a shared belief in online trading of energy and other digitally-enabled services as the fastest potential drivers of a profitable energy storage industry, according to a Sonnen director.
GE Ventures, the venture capital arm of US-headquartered multinational engineering group GE, has invested in German energy storage hardware and services provider Sonnen.
Mercom Capital Group’s Q1 2016 report reveals 50% drop in VC funding for battery and storage companies compared to last quarter’s figures.
A trial project using 1.1MWh of lithium-ion battery storage to harness power from rooftop solar systems has been installed in the Western Australia suburb of Alkimos.
US residential installer SolarCity has closed US$150 million of financing to fund the deployment of commercial solar and storage systems.
Recharge A/S, an investment fund specialising in renewables, will take a 50.1% stake in a €24 million (US$26.7 million) micro grid on a remote Portuguese island that could prove the validity of such projects as an asset class.
Energy storage could have a ‘highly critical’ role to play in emerging economies, Aloke Gupta of Imergy Power Systems says. Gupta, who was previously with California’s Public Utilities’ Commission, the state’s regulator, talks about the uses and applications of micro-grids, from his vantage point of view as a flow battery and storage system maker.
The Japanese city in which the manufacturing bases of lithium-ion battery makers including Panasonic, Hitachi Maxcell and GS Yuasa are located will play host to the world’s biggest energy storage battery and system testing facility to date.
In the simplest terms, if 2014 was the year of test deployments and proving storage can work, 2015 was a year of getting things done. But what are the big trends likely to drive the space on in 2016? Lux Research closely tracks the energy storage industry, in combination with solar, in terms of its synergy with EVs and in its own right. Andy Colthorpe spoke with Lux analyst Cosmin Laslau to get his views and predictions on what we can expect to see this year.
Almost US$700 million of corporate funding went into energy storage in 2015, including US$397 million from venture capital (VC) investment, according to the latest report from Mercom Capital.
